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Titanosauria (Dinosaurs of the Ice Age)
The titanosaurs were among some of the biggest, heaviest, and last of the massive herbivorous sauropods. The titanosaurs first evolved in the Late Jurassic as large browsers. However, they didn't diversify until the Early Cretaceous when their relatives became extinct. In our home timeline, the titanosaurs died out at the end of the Cretaceous when a meteor the size of Mount Everest smashed in the Gulf of Mexico and wiped out all non-avian dinosaurs. However, in this alternate timeline, the cooling trend of the Cretaceous gave the titanosaurs time to adapt to a colder climate. This allowed a few species to survive the mass extinction. From the Cretaceous to the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, they lived on all the continents and were very diverse. Unfortunately, at the end of the Eocene, the titanosaurs went into severe decline. They died out in the Americas and Eurasia due to competition from ornithopods. They also went extinct in Antarctica during the Oligocene due to the cooling climate. By the Miocene, the only titanosaurs left lived in Africa and Australia. Then during the Late Miocene, the ceratopsians and therizinosaurs migrated from Eurasia to Africa and brought serious competition for the titanosaurs. However, the titanosaurs in Australia stayed diverse. Groups False Camarasaurs (Family: Parvoposeidonidae) These small titanosaurs are a relic from the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum. They get their name because the have an anatomy very similar to the extinct Camarasaurus. They have this small size due to the limited space of the dense rainforest of northern Australia and New Guinea. These small titanosaurs are also a very ancient group. They first evolved during the early Eocene in Eurasia when much of the world was still tropical rainforest. There were at least two dozen species of these small titanosaurs living from England-China. However, due to the drying climate of the Oligocene, the false camarasaurs only lived in parts of east Asia and Indonesia. Then, during the Miocene, a few species managed to island-hop to Australia. When the Pleistocene arrived, the Parvaposeidoniids went extinct in east Asia due to their Rainforest home drying out completely. This ancient group contains only two species in the present day. These species are the Australian false camarasaur (Parvoposeidon australis) from northern Australia and the New Guinea false camarasaur (Parvoposeidon septentrionali) from New Guinea. Desert Titans (Family: Desertotitanidae) When Australia's arid grasslands arrived during the Miocene, most sauropod groups on the continent went extinct because most of them were browsers and couldn't adapt to the spread of grass-like ferns. However, two group was able to survive. One these were the desert titans. The desert titans get their name for their gigantic size and desert lifestyle. They eat mainly desert shrubs and grass-like ferns. These giants can also go for weeks without water. The desert titans first evolved in the Miocene when the dense forests started to dry out into vast fern prairies and arid desert. Today, they have a good diversity, having several species. Species *Western Desert Titan (Desertotitan occidentalis) *Southern Desert Titan (Desertotitan australis) *Central Desert Titan (Desertotitan centrum) Savannah Stompers (Family: Campusidae) This is the only group of titanosaurs left in Africa. The invasion of ceratopsians and therizinosaurs from Eurasia occured during the Late Miocene and Early Pliocene; and these two groups were more successful plant eaters than the titanosaurs and the two groups nearly drove the African titanosaurs to extinction. The reason that the savannah stompers survived might've been because they ate the grass-like ferns while the ceratopsians and therizinosaurs were browsers. The savannah stompers are the biggest dinosaurs on the planet in this alternate timeline. They are over 30 meters in length. They also have armor similar to a Saltasaurus. Savannah stompers get their name because they constantly trample forests in order to feed on the grass-like ferns that grow between the trees. There are several species of savannah stomper, three live on the African mainland while one species lives on Madagascar. Species *Barbary Savannah Stomper (Campus atlas) *Sub-Saharan Savannah Stomper (Campus campus) *Madagascar Stomper (Truncatis trucantis) *Pygmy Stomper (Pygmaeo madagascarensis) Category:Dinosaurs Category:Reviewed Category:Africa Category:Sauropods Category:Reptiles Category:Alternative Evolution Category:Oceania